The first of the four Lakota values is wacantognaka, which is the Lakota word for generosity and means to contribute to the well-being of one’s people and all of life by both sharing and give to one another freely. This sort of sharing doesn’t only pertain to object and possessions however, but more importantly pertains to one’s emotions such as sympathy, compassion, and kindness. Further, wacantognaka also means to be generous with one’s personal time and sharing that time with others. The Lakota belief here is that giving and not looking for anything in return can make you happy, and aid in becoming a better, more ethical person. In addition, giveaways have always been part of Lakota society. For example, at important events, Lakota families …show more content…
The tiyospaye includes ideas pertaining to one living in harmony, belonging, relations being one’s wealth, and the importance of trusting in others. It is because of these values that the tiyospaye works. To the Lakota, family is the measure of your wealth and as such it is their responsibility to support you in both the good times of your life and the bad. For a Lakota, you belong to a tiyospaye through marriage and birth or adoption. A Lakota’s family extends out to your entire band as well as the whole Lakota nation. Whenever a Lakota travels anywhere, the individual can expect to be welcomed and supported within that nation as if they were in their own immediate family. In traditional Lakota society, however, wotitakuye was a bit different from what it is known to be today. The Lakota were a warrior and hunting society by nature, which meant that the men might not return after they had gone out to fight or to hunt. As such, the network of relatives ensured the women, children, and elders would not be left alone. In these times, generosity played as a core value in the Lakota way of life and resources were meant to be shared amongst everyone (Four Lakota Values - Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural …show more content…
Wacintaka means believing in oneself which allows a person to face challenge challenges. Fortitude of this kind grants the ability to come to terms with problems and to accept them, thus working to find a solution which can benefit everyone for the greater good. One of the first lessons that a Lakota child would learn in the old days of the Lakota was self-control and self-restraint when in the presence of parents or adults. Mastery and abilities came from games and creative play. Someone more skilled than oneself was viewed as a role model, not just simply a competitor. Striving forward was meant to achieve a personal goal, not for being superior to one’s opponent. Success was thus a possession of the many, not the few. Wacintaka may require patience, perseverance, and strength of mind when one is in the face of adversity. Wacintaka involved having confidence in oneself and the courage to continue even when the odds are stacked against you. Thus, fear still exists however, one proceeds forward in spite of such fear (Four Lakota Values - Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural
In the Lakota Way, Marshall teaches many different virtues that all are important to being a good person, but respect shines above them all. It is at the cornerstone of every virtue the author puts forth. It is clear in every story told by Marshall and in every lesson taught in The Lakota Way. Without at least a modicum of respect, the virtues taught by the Lakota would be less valuable to us as a society.
According to Tyler Troudt once said, “The past cannot be changed forgotten to edit or erased it can only be accepted.” In the book The Lakota Way, it is talking about all the old stories that no one talks about anymore. Some of the stories are about respect, honor, love, sacrifice, truth, bravery. Joseph M. Marshall III wrote this story so that young adults around the world and mainly the Lakota people know their culture, so they knew all the stories about the people long ago. What the author is writing about is all information that today’s generation will never know about the stories because most of the elder that even knew or know the stories have passed away or the young people just are not interested in listening to them anymore.
He makes a point of how American’s place an extreme emphasis on “lineal order”, we take pride in “lining things up, getting thing in line… We have it all neatly separated and categorized” (16). This statement is absolutely true, if we look about our society, the city we live in, the design of our houses, the way desks are arranged in a school, everything is in straight, orderly lines. In contrast, in Native American communities “the reverse is true… instead of separating into categories of the sort, family groups sit in circles, meeting are in circles” (17). These are examples of how the Native American culture places great value on coming together and including people in their traditions. In Toelken opinion, these differences in spatial systems also affect our relationships with
The Native American’s way of living was different from the Europeans. They believed that man is ruled by respect and reverence for nature and that nature is an ancestor or relative. The Native American’s strongly belie...
The three parts of Joseph Marshall’s The Lakota Way that are the most important are love, sacrifice, and bravery. All three are a part of an average person’s life and are virtues people admire, worldwide. Love, the most important of the virtues, is an emotion, that is shown in unique ways; it is shared between parent and child, between spouses, and between friends. Sacrifice is an action word, that comes from within yourself, just like love, people sacrifice in unique ways. The final important virtue is bravery; bravery is a big step, it shows how much courage one has, how much strength they can put into something horrifying, hard, or somber. These are values that are a part of Lakota culture, and they are respected and practiced everyday.
The term sovereignty is a broad topic that has many different definitions. The most common definition is a nation or groups ability or right to govern themselves. Sovereignty is a term and idea that goes hand in hand with Native Americans throughout history. Native American tribes were once considered sovereign nation until shortly after the arrival of European settlers. Native Americans lost their sovereignty due to the forceful assimilation into white culture by European settlers. The problem with this is that Native Americans have been in North American, acting as self-governing groups, since the beginning days. What sets Native Americans apart from other “minority groups” is that they have existed as self-governing peoples and are more than a group
Lakota Woman Essay In Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog argues that in the 1970’s, the American Indian Movement used protests and militancy to improve their visibility in mainstream Anglo American society in an effort to secure sovereignty for all "full blood" American Indians in spite of generational gender, power, and financial conflicts on the reservations. When reading this book, one can see that this is indeed the case. The struggles these people underwent in their daily lives on the reservation eventually became too much, and the American Indian Movement was born. AIM, as we will see through several examples, made their case known to the people of the United States, and militancy ultimately became necessary in order to do so.
Throughout ancient history, many indigenous tribes and cultures have shown a common trait of being hunter/gatherer societies, relying solely on what nature had to offer. The geographical location influenced all aspects of tribal life including, spirituality, healing philosophy and healing practices. Despite vast differences in the geographical location, reports show various similarities relating to the spirituality, healing philosophy and healing practices of indigenous tribal cultures.
Black Elk, F (2000). Observations on Marxism and Lakota Tradition. In Brunk, T., Diamond, S.,
I have decided to discuss the topic of Spirituality in Native Americans. To address this topic, I will first discuss what knowledge I have gained about Native Americans. Then I will discuss how this knowledge will inform my practice with Native Americans. To conclude, I will talk about ethical issues, and dilemmas that a Social Worker might face working with Native American people.
Pages one to sixty- nine in Indian From The Inside: Native American Philosophy and Cultural Renewal by Dennis McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb, provides the beginning of an in-depth analysis of Native American cultural philosophy. It also states the ways in which western perspective has played a role in our understanding of Native American culture and similarities between Western culture and Native American culture. The section of reading can be divided into three lenses. The first section focus is on the theoretical understanding of self in respect to the space around us. The second section provides a historical background into the relationship between Native Americans and British colonial power. The last section focus is on the affiliation of otherworldliness that exist between
In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will discuss the major themes of the book and why the author wrote it, it will describe Native American society, its values and its beliefs and how they changed and it will show how Native Americans views other non-Natives.
to teach the young of the tribe the type of values they would have to
With her attention to the kinship practices of Waterlily’s family, Deloria shows that the Dakota society uses these practices to honor and grace the members of their family. She allows readers to see that members of the Dakota society valued the interconnectedness of their society and aimed to extend it through kinship practices. In the quest to insure that all people in the Dakota community received honor, the members of Waterlily’s tiyospaye used these kinship practices properly insure that respect follows them for all of their
Community takes high precedence over self in Native American culture. They are a collectivist culture which means the tribe members will work as a whole to raise children and help one another (Hodgins & Hodgins, 2013, p. 449). Native Americans view many tribe member s as close family. The concept of family “stretches far beyond the concept of the traditional nuclear family in Western culture” (Lettenberger-Klein, Fish, & Hecker, 2013, p. 149).